Another of these vermin was the rats, these carried with them countless diseases and their foul smell. They made terrible nuisance of themselves by stealing much of what little food there was. Another thing that caused great resentment towards the rats was that the soldiers couldn’t help thinking that they lived on their dead friend’s bodies; this as you can probably well imagine was a horrendous experience.
There was a better side to being in the trenches and this was the brother hood of war. You would become incredibly close to your comrades, which sometimes made life more bearable. As ever this also had a ad side, this incredible friend ship made losing your companion even harder, and indeed drove some people to insanity.
Food in the trenches
“The biscuits are so hard that you had to put them on a firm surface and smash them with a stone or something. I've held one in my hand and hit the sharp corner of a brick wall and only hurt my hand...”
This quotation sums up the service rations that the long suffering soldiers received and were forced to eat.
Over 300,000 field workers were employed in the army to cook and prepare the food. A total of 3,240,948 tons of food was sent from Britain to the soldiers fighting in France and Belgium during the First World War.
Weapons of World War 1
As I have said in other modules, WWI brought upon the world a new era of brutality; this was fuelled by the endless invention and development of new and more efficient killing machines.
Machine guns
One of the most noticeable, and infamous was of course the machine gun. It tore through thousands upon thousands of men throughout the duration of WWI. Both the British and the German trenches made use of the machine gun’s mechanised approach to war. The machine gun tore through the infantry with frightful ease.
one of the choice weapons of The British was the Lewis Light Machine Gun, adopted by the British Army in 1915 as a source of light automatic firepower that could be carried and operated by one man. By 1916 each infantry Battalion was equipped with 8 guns and by 1917 this figure had risen to 16, one for each platoon. Although somewhat delicate and prone to jam in the dirty conditions of trench warfare, the Lewis was an effective weapon that continued to serve in huge numbers with British and Canadian troops throughout World War I and into the opening stages of World War II. A lightened version was also used on aircraft. Machine guns were perhaps the most monstrous weapons of World war one.
Barbed wire
One of the most prolific obstacles that the advancing allied troops faced was the mass of barbed wire, which the Germans had put in front of their trenches. This most frustrating of enemies prevented the troops from reaching the trenches of the opposition forces. In some places the wire was reported to be so thick that the barrel of a gun couldn’t be forced through it.
In some cases corpses were laid across the wire to act as a bridge, and allow the troops to cross. One of the ways to advance across the wire was by using a tank; these newly developed “masters” of combat made mincemeat of the wire.
If it weren’t for barbed wire, the war may have been won a great deal earlier, but that can be said for so many of the weapons that featured in the First World War.
Tanks
In 1914 the official war correspondent Colonel Earnest Swinton saw the need for an armoured vehicle, to be used to cross barbed wire and uneven ground. GHQ (General Head Quarters) rejected the proposition feeling that there was no need for such a machine. Eventually Swinton found and ally, none other than Winston Churchill, who was then the First lord of the admiralty. In 1915, the admiralty tried to overcome the problem of trenches that had been dug across the roads. Swinton again suggested that a fleet of “land-ships” should be developed. A series of trials led to a development of a prototype, which was nicknamed “big Willie.” The new tanks made their military combat debut on 15th September at the Somme. They were cast forward in a haphazard manner. It was not until 1917 that tanks were successfully employed en masse at Cambrai.
Artillery
In the trenches one of the most terrifying scenarios possible for us to imagine was: You and a number of other men playing cards in your dug-out, to the sound of the incessant, unceasing explosion of enemy shells. Steadily they start creeping closer and closer, with you and you comrades waiting with baited breath for the one that hits you. This was not an uncommon scene to encounter throughout World war one.
Artillery accounted for almost 70% of the casualties from 1914-1918. Troops were subjected to heavy bombardment and endured physical and mental torture. A French infantry sergeant compared the ordeal to being:
“Tied to a post and threatened by a fellow swinging a sledge hammer. Now the hammer is swung back for a blow, it whirls forward, till, just missing your skull, it sends the splinters flying from the post once more. This is exactly what it is like to be under heavy shelling.”
Nevertheless, even after heaviest spells of bombardment, sufficient numbers of soldiers survived, so more of ten than not, they could still hold off an infantry attack. The 4.3 million shells fired in the 14 days before offensive at Passchendaele failed to suppress the defense. When the British troops went over the top the German machine guns were waiting for them.
During the war the British artillery fired off over 170 million rounds representing more than 500 million tons. During the 2 weeks preceding the Passchendaele offensive, British guns fired off 4,283,550 rounds, at a cost of £22 million sterling.
Gas
Poisonous gases had been around for a long time before the , but military officers were reluctant to use them as they considered it to be an uncivilized weapon. The , however were the first to employ it as a weapon, when in the first month of the war they fired tear-gas grenades into the German trenches.
In October 1914 the began firing shrapnel shells in which the steel balls had been treated with a chemical irritant. The Germans first used gas cylinders in April 1915 when it was employed against the at . Chlorine gas destroyed the respiratory organs of its victims and this led to a slow death by asphyxiation.
The weather was an important factor in the decision-making before a gas attack was made, so incidents like the following could be avoided. On the 25th September 1915, the wind blew it back into the faces of the advancing troops. This problem was solved in 1916 when gas shells were produced for use with . This increased the army's range of attack and helped to protect their own troops when weather conditions were not completely ideal.
After the first German gas attacks, Allied troops were supplied with masks of cotton pads that had been soaked in urine. It was found that the ammonia in the pad neutralized the poison.
One disadvantage for the side that launched gas attacks was that it made the victim cough and therefore limited his intake of the poison.
It has been estimated that the Germans used 68,000 tons of gas against Allied soldiers. This was more than the (36,000) and the (25,000).
An estimated 91,198 soldiers died as a result of poison gas attacks and another 1.2 million were hospitalised. The , with 56,000 deaths, suffered more than any other armed force, as demonstrated below.
Flamethrowers
Flame-throwers were first used on the in October 1914. Operated by two men, they were mainly used to clear enemy soldiers from trenches. At first they had a range of 25 metres but later this was increased to 40 metres. This meant they were only effective over narrow areas of . Another problem was that the flame-thrower was difficult to move around and only contained enough oil to burn 40 seconds at the time. Soldiers who operated flame-throwers had a short-life span because as soon as they used them they were the target of and machine gun fire.
The battle of Verdun
The Battle of Verdun was started by a German attack, on 21st February 1916. A million troops, that was led by , faced about 200,000 French defenders. The following day the French were forced to retreat to their second line of trenches. By 24th February the French had moved back to the third line and were only 8km from Verdun.
By the end of February the German attack had been stopped. On the 6th March, the German Army launched a new attack. The Germans advanced 3km before they were stopped at Mort Homme Hill. The French held this point until the Germans finally secured it on 29th May.
Further attacks continued throughout the summer and early autumn. However, the scale of the German attacks was reduced by the need to transfer troops to defend their front-line at the . The French now counter-attacked and General became a national hero when the forts at Douaumont and Vaux were recaptured by 2nd November 1916.
Verdun, the longest battle of the , ended on the 18th December. The lost about 550,000 men. It is estimated that the German Army suffered 434,000 casualties. About half of all casualties at Verdun were Fatalities.
Poetry of world war one
The First World War has inspired poets and authors far more than any other combat ever. This is because the combat was such a shock to the world. Before ww1 society had never imagined that humans could be so brutal towards one another. The First World War was the period in which the world lost its innocence. The scenes of sheer horror and vivid brutality inspire some of the greatest the world has ever seen, to write some of their greatest material.
One of the greatest of these poets was Wilfred Owen. He was an officer in the Manchester Fusiliers. He started writing towards the end of the war, and had taken part in frontline service and so had a very negative outlook on the war (which is completely justified). One of his earlier, greatest and most famous poems is “Anthem for a doomed youth:”
What passing bells for those who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries for them from prayers or bells,
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in the eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.
As you can see it is extremely moving and also harrowing. Poets can make such a great impact on people. Poetry tells us more about soldiers’ emotions and Feelings than any fact or statistic.
Another great war poet was Seigfried sasson. He joined the army in 1915, with the Sussex Yeomanry as a cavalry trooper. In 1915 he became an officer in the military fusiliers. In June 1916 he was awarded the military cross for bravery.
After being wounded in April 1917, Sassoon was sent back to England. Sassoon had grown increasingly angry about the tactics being employed by the British Army and in July 1917 published “a Soldier's Declaration,” which announced that
"I am making this statement as an act of wilful defiance of military authority, because I believe that the war is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it."
The following is a poem named, “suicide in the trenches,” and voices Sassons anger at the consequences of the terrors of trench warfare:
I knew a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.
In winter trenches, cowed and glum,
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.
You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you'll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.
This too is a very powerful and moving work of literature, which truly portrays the dread of the trenches.
Rupert Brooke composed one rather different poem. It was written in 1914 and is very patriotic. It views war as a rather glorious affair It is named “the soldier:”
If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England's, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.
As you can see he views war a lot differently from both Sassoon and Owen. This is because it was written (as I have already noted, before the man saw any of the real depravity that would’ve been there to greet him.
The importance of women
Upon the outbreak of war there was a widespread feeling that in spite of the war, it would be “business as usual.” This, as we now no was not the case at all, as important and significant social changes were afoot.
The huge rush of men to “join up” from factories and mines left the country’s industry short of skilled labour. In their places were filled (in the most part) by women, an important step on the way to equality. Traditional male occupations were filled by women. On a soldier’s return to “blighty” he would be struck by women working on the railways as porters or guards.
There were problems, however women were being paid lower wages than their male counterparts, despite government pledges.
1917-a crucial year
1917 was perhaps the most important year of the war, I have drawn this conclusion for many different reasons, the most obvious and widely spoken reason for this is that 1917 was the year that America joined the war.
On 31st January 1917, Germany announced a new submarine offensive. Wilson responded by breaking off diplomatic relations with Germany. The publication of the , that suggested that Germany was willing to help Mexico regain territory in Texas and Arizona, intensified popular opinion against the .
On 2nd April, asked for permission to go to war. This was approved in the Senate on 4th April by 82 votes to 6, and two days later, in the House of Representatives, by 373 to 50. Still avoiding alliances, war was declared against the government (rather than its subjects). War against was not declared until 7th December 1917.
The Russian revolution
By early 1917 Russia’s disintegrating war machine was on the brink of collapse. In March food riots in Petograd (St. Petersburg) deteriorated into a widespread uprising, which forced the Tsar to abdicate.
The capture of Riga by the Germans, on 1st September finally brought the Russian giant to it’s knees. Thousands of troops threw down their arms and walked home. They had “voted with their feet” as it was but, by the Bolshevik leader, Lenin.
Lenin had no interest in prolonging the war for Russia, so he opened peace talks with Germany in the bleak polish town of Brest Litovsk. German forces were within 100 miles of Petrograd when, on 3rd march, Russian delegates signed a peace treaty with Germany. As a result of peace, Russia had to surrender the provinces of Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine, the Baltic provinces and Transcaucasia to Germany. The collapse of fighting on the Eastern front allowed Germany to shift 40 divisions of men to the Western front, which were desperately needed, because of the arrival of American troops onto European battlefields.
The final attack
After the withdrawal of Russia from the war, Germany could now concentrate all of it’s resources onto the western front. The German “plan of action” was to make one final advance upon the allied trenches. The attack was primarily very effective and it looked as if ludendorff’s gamble had been successful. The German troops were rapidly regaining ground and it looked bad for allied forces.
However, the German troops were rapidly becoming exhausted and the supplies were not reaching the soldiers. The allies chose their time to counter-attack wisely and easily toppled their German opposition.
The counter-attack begun on the 8th of August, the Allies took advantage of the fact that they had many more tanks than the Germans, and pushed back against the advancing Germans and broke through the Hindenburg line. In the final months of the war the Germans suffered heavy casualties.
The effects of four years of fighting were felt heavily in German cities. They called for an end to the war which was fast becoming an inevitability.
On 11th November at the 11th hour an armistice was signed by the allies and the Germans. The war was finally over.
Consequences of the war
The first world war had accounted for the death of over thirteen million people. This means that four had been killed and nine others wounded for every minute of fighting. If the money used to fund the war had been allocated differently, then every household in: The United States, Canada, Australia, Great Britain, France, Belgium, Germany, and Russia; with a house worth £500, furnished to the extent of £300, and given land worth £100!
The homeless and impoverished suffered, along with so many others, the ill effects of the war. They were left with no homes, money or no family. Was the end really worth the means? Maybe some other way could’ve been used to resolve the situation, all that we can do is learn about these terrible events and try our utmost to never let it happen again.